Reservoirs by R S Thomas appeared in “Not That He Brought Flowers”, published in 1968. It was written soon after the opening of Llyn Celyn and Llyn Clywedog.

There are places in Wales I don't go:Reservoirs that are the subconsciousOf a people, troubled far downWith gravestones, chapels, villages even;The serenity of their expressionRevolts me, it is a poseFor strangers, a watercolour's appealTo the mass, instead of the poem'sHarsher conditions. There are the hills,Too; gardens gone under the scumOf the forests; and the smashed facesOf the farms with the stone trickleOf their tears down the hills' side.

Where can I go, then, from the smellOf decay, from the putrefying of a deadNation? I have walked the shoreFor an hour and seen the EnglishScavenging among the remainsOf our culture, covering the sandLike the tide and, with the roughnessOf the tide, elbowing our languageInto the grave that we have dug for it.